Valencia CF vs Sporting Gijon - Match Preview

After a disappointing loss from FC Barcelona at the Copa Del Rey, Valencia CF will once again focus on the primera league and try to get its first win in 5 matches. With Atletico Madrid and Atletico Bilbao drawing and loosing respectively Valencia CF has a chance to get away from them and increase the lead to a comfortable 9 points lead over Atletico Madrid.

Levante is also playing against Real Madrid so its safe to say that if Valencia CF wins it will increase its ldead over Levante to 8 points.

Valencia CF has been in a slump the last month or so in La Liga and has gone 5 matches without winning, 4 of those matches drawing and loosing to Real Sociedad. This kind of performance is not surprising, as almost every year with Emery now he gets similar results with Valencia. We always seem to slump after returning from the short winter break.

Will today's match again Sporting Gijon be the turning point or will we continue on this bad run of results. Certainly this is the match we must win, before the alarm bells start ringing. The fact that Valencia doesn't have tough opposition this season is benefiting us, since we are not under pressure to start getting results, but this is very important match and one we must win.

Unai Emery has brought 18 players with him, with Ruiz injured and Pablo as Emery says left to recover further from his injury, after a bleak performance in the last La Liga match.

Sporting Gijon is in the relegation zone with only 19 points, only less than Zaragoza and with Villarreal improving under their new coach its going to likely be a tough season for them with every match a battle to avoid relegation.

In the last 5 matches Sporting Gijon have won once, draw once and lost 3 times. They are also the worst team defensively with a staggering 39 goals conceded and only 20 goals scored which while not worst, its pretty low.

David Barral is their most proficient goal scorer with 7 goals scored so far which accounts for 1/3 of their overall goals scored.